The present invention relates to graphical user interfaces, and more particularly to graphical user interfaces that are particularly useful for providing access to family-oriented communications applications.
Communications in one form or another have long played a part in the day-to-day home life of individuals and families. These communications might simply be messages to oneself, such as recipes and shopping lists, or they may be intended to communicate information from one person to another (or others), either within the same household or to someone outside the house.
Various types of communication devices have been made available for the purpose of making the intended communication easier, faster and/or more efficient. Fax machines and personal computers (PCs) are examples of such devices. By and large, however, these devices are designed for use in office-like settings. Thus, for example, a PC usually requires enough desk space to hold a keyboard and monitor, and possibly also a base unit that houses the computer motherboard.
It is possible to incorporate some of the office-oriented equipment into the home for use there as well. Often this involves setting up an area of the home that becomes a xe2x80x9chome officexe2x80x9d space (either a separate room, or a portion of a room) that is used for home office-related activities. Consequently, to make use of this home equipment, one must make an effort to go to the home office space.
Lifestyles typically do not center around the home office space, however. One consequence of this is that one might at times feel disinclined to make use of the equipment because it feels like too much of an effort. Thus, for example, one might put off entering recipes into a computerized recipe organizer, or might avoid going into the home office and turning on the computer just to look up a telephone number that is stored on the PC""s hard drive because going to the home office space might mean isolating oneself from the center of activity in the household. Moreover, because the home office space is often not used for other purposes, family members cannot reliably leave messages there for other family members because there is no assurance that the message will be noticed (i.e., there is no assurance that the intended recipient(s) of the message will go to the home office space, thereby enabling them to see the message).
One could attempt to solve this problem by moving the communications equipment into a location that would make it more readily accessible to family members in their normal day-to-day lives. However, such a solution is problematic for several reasons. First, as mentioned above, conventional equipment often requires more space (e.g., table space and the like) than most family rooms can accommodate without at least compromising the decor of the room. Moreover, many household occupants do not feel comfortable with, or are otherwise intimidated by conventional equipment such as PCs, which can often require knowledge of how to boot up a system, how to select and launch programs, and how to gracefully shut down a system. Put another way, the operating systems of conventional systems provide a user interface that is out of place in a home setting. Rather than interacting with the equipment in a way that feels natural, the user instead has to perform actions associated with a desktop metaphor.
There is therefore a need to provide communications methods and apparatuses that are suitable for use in a home setting, and which more naturally fit into existing home life behaviors.
It should be emphasized that the terms xe2x80x9ccomprisesxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9ccomprisingxe2x80x9d, when used in this specification, are taken to specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps or components; but the use of these terms does not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, components or groups thereof.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, the foregoing and other objects are achieved in methods and apparatuses that generate a graphical user interface. In one aspect, this includes displaying a background on a touch screen; displaying a first virtual magnet on the background; relocating the first virtual magnet from a first location on the background to a second location on the background in response to a drag operation performed on the first virtual magnet by a user; and activating an application program in response to a tap operation performed on the first virtual magnet by the user. Thus, virtual magnets are like real magnets in that they can be placed where the user would like them to appear.
The graphical user interface can also be made to display an application window on the background in response to the tap operation performed on the first virtual magnet by the user. In some, but not necessarily all, embodiments, the application window can be made to appear to be a sheet of paper. In some other alternatives, the application window can be made to appear to be a plurality of sheets of paper, wherein each one of the sheets of paper has a tab portion that indicates one of a corresponding plurality of applications that can be activated.
Although it is not essential to the invention, the graphical user interface can move the virtual magnet from a main page location to an application window location in response to the tap operation performed on the first virtual magnet by the user, wherein the application window location is such that part of the virtual magnet covers a portion of the application window and a remaining part of the virtual magnet covers a portion of the background, thereby creating the illusion that the virtual magnet is affixing the application window to the background. In some embodiments it is also possible, at this point, to move other virtual magnets to positions alongside the application window. This permits the other virtual magnets to continue to be viewed by the user.
Another feature that can be included in the graphical user interface is terminating the application in response to a second tap operation being performed on the first virtual magnet by the user. In addition to terminating the application, the application window should be removed from the background; and the first virtual magnet can be returned to the main page location. If the other virtual magnets were moved alongside the application window when the application was activated, then terminating the application can also include returning them to their earlier-held positions on the background.
In other non-essential aspects of the invention, the magnet metaphor can be enhanced by performing any combination of the following. A predetermined sound (e.g., a xe2x80x9cclickxe2x80x9d) can be generated in response to a peripheral region of one virtual magnet coming into contact with a peripheral region of another virtual magnet. Virtual magnets can be made to repel one another when a peripheral region of one virtual magnet is less than a predetermined distance from a peripheral region of another virtual magnet. The repelling operation causes the two virtual magnets to be moved such that they are at least the predetermined distance away from each other. Alternatively, virtual magnets can be made to attract one another, whereby two or more virtual magnets are moved such that a peripheral region of one is made to be in contact with the peripheral regions of the others. The movement of virtual magnets when attracted or repelled can be uniform for all virtual magnets, or alternatively can be made to vary as a function of relative masses (or weights) associated with virtual magnets.